Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday unveiled his plan to provide services by June 2025 to the 3,204 people on the state's waiting list for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who want to stay in their homes and communities.
Of those on the waiting list for services as of Dec. 1, 1,861 of them had income low enough to qualify for some form of services through the state's traditional Medicaid program and the remainder are receiving no services at all, the Republican governor said at his weekly news conference in the governor's conference room at the state Capitol.
"Today, I am announcing a plan to provide services to everyone, everyone, that is currently on the waiting list," said Hutchinson, who has been governor since 2015 and whose term as governor ends in January 2023.
The state is submitting a waiver request to the federal government to have 200 more slots for people to receive services that will be funded with existing revenue, he said.
In addition, Hutchinson said he also will ask the General Assembly to add special language to devote $37.6 million of his proposed $60 million increase in the Medicaid general revenue budget in fiscal 2023 to "create more slots, so that everyone who is currently on the list will be served by June of 2025."
Fiscal 2023 starts July 1, 2022, and ends June 30, 2023.
Hutchinson said he expects lawmakers will support his proposal during the fiscal session that starts Feb. 14.
"Once approved in terms of that funding, then [the state Department of Human Services] will submit a request to amend the current waiver to progressively add enough slots over the next three years to serve everyone who is currently on the waiting list as of today," he said. "It gives them hope and it gives a specific plan as to how to address this great need that we have to meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens."
During a three-day special session last week, various advocates for the developmentally disabled testified against income tax cut bills that Hutchinson signed into law last Thursday. The advocates cited the need for funding to reduce the waiting list for care for the developmentally disabled.
State finance officials project Acts 1 and 2 of the special session will eventually provide nearly $500 million a year in tax relief for Arkansans, the largest cut in state history.
Among other things, the identical income tax laws would cut the top individual and top corporate income tax rates, consolidate the low- and middle-income tax tables, and create a nonrefundable low-income tax credit.
The law are projected by the state Department of Finance and Administration to reduce general revenue by $135.25 million in fiscal 2022, increasing to $497.9 million in fiscal 2026. Some of the income tax cuts will go into effect on Jan. 1, midway through fiscal 2022.
The state Democratic House Caucus held a news conference last week to offer several proposals they said would be a better use of the $600 million a year that the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated would be the reduction in general revenue from the cuts.
The House Democrats' proposals included $37 million toward eliminating the developmental disability services wait list.
House Democratic leader Tippi McCullough of Little Rock said Tuesday night in a text message to this newspaper, "Glad there is movement to get some help where so sorely needed."
Rep. Megan Godfrey, D-Springdale, on Tuesday afternoon tweeted about Hutchinson's announcement and that the House Democrats highlighted this critical need last week.
"Thank you, Governor, for your responsive leadership," Godfrey wrote in her tweet.
Hutchinson described Tuesday's announcement as a follow-up to his discussions with Senate Democratic leader Keith Ingram of West Memphis and some other lawmakers last week.
The governor said he assured Ingram that the developmentally disabled waiting list is of grave concern to state officials, and he had a commitment and a plan to address this matter.
Last week, Ingram cited the governor's commitment to significantly cutting, if not eliminating, the waiting list as one of three reasons that he voted for the income tax cut measures.
Hutchinson said Tuesday the plan that he outlined probably has been in works for six months or more.
Ingram said Tuesday in an interview he appreciates that Hutchinson sees the need for reducing the waiting list and has a plan to do that.
"For these families it is a godsend," he said, noting that people with autistic children have one of the highest divorce rates.
Hutchinson said the current waiver for the developmentally disabled serves more than 5,000 Arkansans. and there has been a significant list of thousands of people waiting for services for many years.
"My administration has not ignored this problem," he said. "We have added 1,200 additional slots to serve more clients in the preceding years. We have addressed it and it gives people hope and more people go onto the list, but there are still many who have been on that list for way, way too long."
According to the Department of Human Services, 2,441 of the 3,204 people now on the waiting list were also there on March 1, 2019.
Melissa Stone, director of the state Division of Developmental Disabilities Services, said, "This is a really exciting day for us.
"It is something we have worked on for a very long time," she said. "Because of this announcement, we are able now to move quickly to get them the services they need to stay in their home and in the community."
The services change people's lives, she said.
In addition, the state will continue to work to expand the network of providers that provide direct support of people with developmental disabilities, Stone said.
She said the state is asking the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to allow a training component in lieu of a requirement for one year of experience for new members of the workforce because state officials believe they can safely train support workers on site.
The state also is asking the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for an initial infusion of $87 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding into the home- and community-based providers to help stabilize the workforce and allow them to use the funding for recruiting, retaining and training the workforce, Stone said.